How to MDK: A User Manual

How to MDK: A User Manual

Welcome to all the new visitors who have found the way to Mason-Dixon Knitting. Thanks for coming! Don’t be a stranger! We’re here every day.

We have a few tips we’d like to share on how our site works.

Every Day, a New Great Thing

It’s true: we publish every single day. We believe there is something interesting to share with you all the damn time, so we pride ourselves on bringing you the world of knitting in all its glory—patterns, yarns, books, how to, even more yarns, and goings on in the knitting world. You will find inspiration, advice, and shopping, too. (If you’re wondering who we are, well, here’s that story.)

We publish early every morning, and we have a lot of readers who tell us we are the first thing they read every day. If you read MDK consistently, you will develop an excellent understanding of what is special in the knitting world. You’ll see the most extraordinary patterns, meet the most interesting designers, and learn about yarns that are unusual, rare, and gorgeous. You can shop for these yarns, too.

The Home Page

The Home Page gives you a view of the latest things happening on MDK.

The Big Thing of the Day is up top, along with the Daily Letter. We show the latest Shop offerings right under that, as well as Latest Articles. Popular This Month shows you the hottest articles, and Now in the Lounge features the latest topics under discussion in our forum, The Lounge. And knitters’ Instagrams round out the Home Page—when you tag #mymdk, you may see your photo there.

Our Contributors

We are tremendously proud of this group of designers and writers. Their voices are an integral part of MDK, and we treasure their points of view. These are smart, funny, and inspiring people. We learn from them all the time. (Also: when you go to the Contributors page and hover over their lovely faces, they turn into color!)

The Departments, aka The Rabbit Holes

Across the top of every page are our Departments. See them up there? Letters, How To, Projects, Inspiration, Fun, and Travel. Our favorite thing to do is simply to open up a department and start wandering.

At this point, there is a ton of beautiful stuff to see on MDK—hundreds and hundreds of articles on everything from sheep shearing on Nash Island to how to make a French knot. Inspiration is a huge department. Projects covers knitting projects in process. Righteous Patterns is where you’ll find our roundups of choice pattern ideas. And Yarns to Love is our never-ending reporting on our yarn discoveries.

How To is home to tips and hints as well as A Year of Techniques, the amazing year-long program of free video tutorials. Fun is where you’ll find our picks for podcasts, TV, and movies—all essential parts of the daily knitter’s lifestyle! Travel lets us all go to the faraway places knitters dream of visiting.

The Shop

These two are in symbiotic relationship with each other. If we’re writing about something, it’s because we find it beautiful, intriguing, educational, or inspiring. If you see it in our Shop, it’s because we think you’ll like it as much as we do. Sometimes we’ll discover a beautiful yarn at a fiber festival, write about it, then months later, we manage to snag a batch of it for the Shop. The goal for the Shop? To bring you great surprises, the perfect match of pattern and yarn, those skeins you can’t find anywhere else.

Snippets: A Weekly Newsletter

For many readers, our Saturday morning email newsletter, Snippets, is the best way to get a weekly overview of all that has happened in the previous week. What Snippets readers are beginning to discover is that Snippets is where special yarn offerings are announced.

If you want to be in the know and have first crack at new yarns, just sign up at the bottom of this page.

The Daily Email

If you’d like to get an email from us each time there’s a new post (that’s every day, remember), you can subscribe at the bottom of this page when you subscribe to our Snippets newsletter. Just check the box to start receiving a daily dose of MDK in your email box.

The Lounge

The Lounge is our online community forum. It has already attracted a wonderful group of attractive, well-put-together knitters with excellent taste and above-average IQs. ; ) Please take a look around—topics are all over the place. This is where we host knitalongs and conversations about articles on MDK. Once you register as a member of the Lounge (free, of course), you are welcome to create topics, so if you’re looking for a place where the knitting happens 24/7, the Lounge is a lot of fun.

That’s all for now! In the coming months, as prime knitting season arrives, we will be ready with an overflowing cornucopia of the things we knitters love. Thanks so much for being a part of this.

Even a long-time reader like me is glad to have this overview. I liked the blog when it was simply a random letter from one of you to the other; it was like standing within hearing range of two really popular girls whom everyone liked, and they liked me enough to include me in their conversation now and then. When you went all Big Time and Serious, I was quite lost for a while, and I still have trouble with the search feature, which thinks it knows what I want. I may know what I’m looking for, but haven’t a clue where to look for it. So this message will be archived, and I will go on struggling with my Granito (I wish there were a 24/7 help line in the Lounge so my problems would be solved instantly.) (Not really.)

I’m grateful for the time, energy and passion you have put into MDK- it’s a knitting place like no other. its more than knitting- I especially appreciate the self care and cooking articles. You guys are geniuses, and I feel lucky to be one of many beneficiaries of that genius. Thank you, thank you Ann and Kay. You make me smile everyday.

Love love love you two! I refer to y’all so often in conversation that dear hubby thought for a while you were members of my local knit group. I think he was a little stunned that you didn’t show up in pix of our Knit in Public event!

I organized my stash yesterday and was surprised by the large number of MDK yarns everywhere — lots of remnants and yarns yet to be knit. Thanks for your hard work on the new site. Reading it is such a pleasant way to start each day.

The original website had a feature that allowed reading all of the letters “from the beginning”, which was arranged chronologically. I can’t find that with the new website. If it’s here, how do I access it? If it’s not here, is there a chance that we’ll get it back? Thanks.

This is a great explanation of the new website and I expect to have better luck finding older articles. I have followed MDK for a long time now, at least 10 years I think, and it is a great way to start the day. Keep up the great work!!

I had been a long time reader but (and this is kind of embarrassing to admit) can’t seem to find the feature I want most – which is how to page through the letters in simple chronological order – so have largely given up. Sort of hoped the How-to Guide would tell me. Oh well. I do miss you guys, so if another email notice is the way to go, sign me up.

As much as I enjoy your new website, I miss being able to scroll through the columns in chronological order. I will often remember something that was written in a previous week–but then am unable to find it.

Long-time fangirl here, going back to when you started the MDK blog. SO glad to rediscover your voice and see how MDK’s evolved. Snippets makes my Saturday mornings, looking forward to following along with everything new MDK. Congratulations!